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Chapter 1 THE SCHOOLROOM The schoolroom is the material heart of American education and always has been. Since the earliest days of education in the North American colonies— when the school was nothing but a classroom—it has been the most impor- tant element of the school’s physical environment. Before the early 20th century, schoolrooms tended toward similarity in terms of size, shape, and purpose there was little modification except for the desire to accommo- date the necessary number of students. Schoolrooms also were authori- tarian spaces where educators exerted tight control over student learning and behavior. With new insights into learning theory and developmental psychology, however, came adjustments, initially seen in progressive edu- cators’ experiments with informal room arrangements and smaller-scale furniture in kindergartens and lower grades. Schoolrooms for these young- est children soon began to break out of the traditional rectangular box form by adding alcoves or partially separated work areas, and many ground- level rooms included patios or outdoor play areas immediately accessible from the main activity space. In the postwar era, classrooms forged a closer relationship with the outdoors. They also began to appear in almost every conceivable shape, from hexagons and octagons to circles and ovals. Mean- while, advances in lighting and ventilation practices—two areas that had always dominated the architectural side of classroom design—virtually eliminated the health concerns of previous generations. Air and tempera- ture regulation reached the point where windowless classrooms were intro- duced they remain a polarizing topic to this day. And the open-education movement had a broad and controversial impact on classroom design with its advocacy of rooms without walls. In the 21st century, although secu- rity looms larger in educators’ minds than before and computer technology introduces continual changes for teachers to explore, the basic schoolroom in America remains remarkably unchanged.